MARTIN LUTHER King Jr. preached nonviolence, practiced it and led a great movement guided by its principles. Yet surely he knew, as did most of his followers, that what they were doing would lead to violence. One need only look at the old black-and-white photos of civil rights protests, at the hatred, scorn and, perhaps most important, fear on the faces of some of the white people there to confront the demonstrators to understand how such simple acts as sitting down in a bus or entering a restaurant, seeking the right to vote or go to a better school, could lead to the worst sorts of violence — a bitter truth that followed King to the day of his death.

Yet out of that violence came new understanding of a sort: People who had been all but invisible to much of the United States came to be seen through the newspapers and television as individual human beings : women and children being firehosed; war veterans returning home to be subjected to all the humiliations and restrictions of the time (or to be murdered, like Medgar Evers); polite young men trying to get a sandwich at a lunch counter; a dignified woman who refused to give up her seat on a bus; the children killed by a bomb in a Birmingham church. For many Americans, this marked the first time they had come face to face, or had allowed themselves to come face to face, with the cruelty of racial separation and oppression, a century after the official end of slavery.

‘Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community’ King’s fifth book was published in 1967 Why it’s important: This is King’s last — and most radical — book. By 1967, he was organizing a “Poor People’s Campaign,” a plan to dispatch an interracial army of poor people to occupy Washington and force the U.S. government to address poverty.

What he said: He takes on black nationalists who ridiculed nonviolence. He says the passage of civil rights laws is not enough. The country must institute a “massive, new national program” to attack poverty. He predicts the civil rights movement will go international as oppressed peoples in other countries adopt nonviolent tactics to combat America’s “economic colonialism.”

Signature lines: “White Americans must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society. The comfortable, entrenched, the privileged cannot continue to tremble at the prospect of change of the status quo. … This is a multiracial nation where all groups are dependent on each other. … There is no separate white path to power and fulfillment, short of social disaster, that does not share power with black aspirations for freedom and human dignity.”

What others say: “I get so tired of people turning Dr. King into a dreamer,” says Doreen Loury, a sociology professor at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania, who says she was blown away by the book when she first read it in the 1960s. “They made him safe. He was a revolutionary.”

As the nation reflects on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., an audiotape of an interview with the civil rights leader discovered in a Tennessee attic sheds new light on a famous phone call John F. Kennedy made to King’s wife more than 50 years ago. Historians generally agree that Kennedy’s phone call to Coretta Scott King expressing concern over her husband’s arrest in October 1960 — and Robert Kennedy’s work behind the scenes to get King released — helped JFK win the White House that fall.

King himself, while appreciative, wasn’t as quick to credit the Kennedys alone with getting him out of jail, according to a previously unreleased portion of the interview with the civil rights leader days after Kennedy’s election. “The Kennedy family did have some part … in the release,” King says in the recording, which was discovered in 2012. “But I must make it clear that many other forces worked to bring it about also.”

“I think Dr. King was aware in the tape that he probably did more for John F. Kennedy than perhaps John F. Kennedy did for him,” said Keya Morgan, a New York-based collector and expert on historical artifacts. John Kennedy didn’t actually commit to the movement until a few months before his assassination when civil rights leader Medgar Evers was gunned down by a Klansman outside his Jackson, Miss., home just after midnight on June 12, 1963. “There were a lot of black folks who … weren’t fully committed to his campaign,” said Winbush, who is also a historian and psychologist. “That call he made to Coretta moved black folks.”

1. Ratify an economic bill of rights: In 1968, members of King’s premier civil rights group, the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), drafted a letter demanding “an economic and social bill of Rights” that would promise all citizens the right to a job, the right to an adequate education, and the right to a decent house, among others.

“It cannot take more than two centuries for it to occur to this country that there is no real right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for people condemned by the accident of their birth to an existence of hereditary economic and social misery,” wrote the letter’s drafters. While the SCLC was specifically concerned with the ways in which economic inequality perpetuates racial inequality, they made clear that the rights they proposed would apply to all citizens. It sounded radical at the time.

In fact, the effort echoed a proposal made by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his 1944 State of the Union Address, when he called for a “second Bill of Rights,” to guarantee all citizens a “useful and remunerative job” and “adequate medical care.

The New Jersey mayor who publicly claimed this weekend that Gov. Chris Christie’s administration tried to withhold hurricane relief funds met Sunday in private with the U.S. attorney for the state of New Jersey. “This afternoon I met with the U.S. Attorney’s office for several hours at their request and provided them with my journal and other documents,” Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said in a statement Sunday. “

As they pursue this investigation, I will provide any requested information and testify under oath about the facts of what happened when the Lieutenant Governor came to Hoboken and told me that Sandy aid would be contingent on moving forward with a private development project.”

Zimmer said Saturday in an interview with MSNBC that she would be willing to sign a sworn statement and testify under oath that she had been threatened by the governor’s staff to approve a development project or risk hurricane relief funding for her town of Hoboken, which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has invited Iran to take part in preliminary Syrian peace talks this week in Switzerland, an offer Tehran has accepted. Mr Ban said he had received assurances that Iran would play a positive role in securing a transitional government. The preliminary talks will open in Montreux on Wednesday and then continue in Geneva two days later.

Syria’s government and the main political opposition group earlier agreed to attend the meeting. The three-year conflict in Syria has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people. An estimated two million people have fled the country and some 6.5 million have been internally displaced.

We are deeply concerned by the violence taking place today on the streets of Kyiv and urge all sides to immediately de-escalate the situation. The increasing tension in Ukraine is a direct consequence of the government failing to acknowledge the legitimate grievances of its people. Instead, it has moved to weaken the foundations of Ukraine’s democracy by criminalizing peaceful protest and stripping civil society and political opponents of key democratic protections under the law. We urge the Government of Ukraine to take steps that represent a better way forward for Ukraine, including repeal of the anti-democratic legislation signed into law in recent days, withdrawing the riot police from downtown Kyiv, and beginning a dialogue with the political opposition. From its first days, the Maidan movement has been defined by a spirit of non-violence and we support today’s call by opposition political leaders to reestablish that principle. The U.S. will continue to consider additional steps — including sanctions — in response to the use of violence.

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Finally got around to reading the New Republic article on Snowden, Greenwald and Assange – ironically written by a character who has ‘Obama Derangement’ issues himself.

Not sure there’s anything new in it, but the section on Snowden says it all about his agenda and motivation:

…. by the end of Bush’s second term, Snowden certainly held the president in low esteem. But not, apparently, his intelligence policies. Nor, it seems, was he drawn to insiders who exposed details of these programs. Quite the opposite: Snowden vilified leakers and defended covert intelligence ops.

In January 2009, Snowden lambasted The New York Times and its anonymous sources for exposing a secret Bush administration operation to sabotage Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Such infuriating breaches had occurred “over and over and over again,” Snowden complained. The Times, he railed, was “like wikileaks” and deserved to go bankrupt; sources who leaked “classified shit” to the Times ought to “be shot in the balls.” When an online interlocutor suggested that it might be “ethical” to report “on the government’s intrigue,” Snowden replied emphatically: “VIOLATING NATIONAL SECURITY? No.” He explained, “that shit is classified for a reason.”

Surprise, surprise:

… nearly as soon as Obama took office, Snowden developed a deep aversion to the new president …. he became furious about Obama’s domestic policies on a variety of fronts. For example, he was offended by the possibility that the new president would revive a ban on assault weapons. “See, that’s why I’m goddamned glad for the second amendment,” Snowden wrote, in another chat. “Me and all my lunatic, gun-toting NRA compatriots would be on the steps of Congress before the C-Span feed finished.”

And this from the ‘progressive’ hero:

At the time the stimulus bill was being debated, Snowden also condemned Obama’s economic policies as part of a deliberate scheme “to devalue the currency absolutely as fast as theoretically possible.” (He favored Ron Paul’s call for the United States to return to the gold standard.) The social dislocations of the financial collapse bothered him not at all. “Almost everyone was self-employed prior to 1900,” he asserted. “Why is 12% employment [sic] so terrifying?” In another chat-room exchange, Snowden (TheTrueHOOHA) debated the merits of Social Security:

<TheTrueHOOHA> save money? cut this social security bullshit

<TheTrueHOOHA> Somehow, our society managed to make it hundreds of years without social security just fine

….. Later in the same session, Snowden wrote that the elderly “wouldn’t be fucking helpless if you weren’t sending them fucking checks to sit on their ass and lay in hospitals all day.”

What a classy guy.

Snowden’s disgruntlement with Obama, in other words, was fueled by a deep disdain for progressive policies …. Contrary to his claims, he seems to have become an anti-secrecy activist only after the White House was won by a liberal Democrat who, in most ways, represented everything that a right-wing Ron Paul admirer would have detested.

Jan. 20, 2009 – Pete Souza: “President-elect Barack Obama was about to walk out to take the oath of office. Backstage at the U.S. Capitol, he took one last look at his appearance in the mirror.”

On January 20th, 2009, Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States of America. Photo by Scout Tufankjian

President Obama is photographed by daughter Malia while Sasha celebrates prior to departing from the White House for Inaugural Balls, Jan. 20, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama ride in a golf cart at an Inaugural Ball in Washington, D.C, Jan. 20, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama share a private moment in a freight elevator at an Inaugural Ball in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama dances with his wife and First Lady Michelle Obama during the Western Inaugural Ball on January 20, 2009

President Obama rides the elevator to the Private Residence of the White House after attending 10 inaugural balls and a long day, including being sworn in as President, Jan. 20, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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The First Lady greets a young visitor touring the White House during a surprise visit in the Blue Room with family dog Bo on the anniversary of the inauguration.” Jan. 20, 2010 (Photo by Samantha Appleton)

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Vice President Biden officially sworn in for his second term by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. January 20th, 2013

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama embrace following the official swearing-in ceremony in the Blue Room of the White House on Inauguration Day, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. Standing, from left, are daughters Malia and Sasha and Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and daughters Sasha and Malia, center, join extended family for a group photo in the Blue Room of the White House on Inauguration Day, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. Joining the First Family from left are: Craig Robinson, Leslie Robinson, Avery Robinson, Marian Robinson, Akinyi Manners, Auma Obama, Maya Soetoro-Ng, Konrad Ng, Savita Ng, and Suhaila Ng. (Photo by Pete Souza)

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MoooOOOooorning everyone! A gazillion thanks to Nerdy and Lovely Plains for all the newsie stuff in the post, legends!

As a girl growing up on the Navajo Reservation in the 1950s and ’60s, LeNora Fulton remembers her parents making a major event out of voting.

Her father would polish his boots. Her mother would put on jewelry. They would drive 50 miles to the polling place in Fort Defiance and make a day of it.

“It was a social event as well,” said Fulton, 59. “It was something that was very special.”

Those were the tribal elections, held at the chapter houses of each community.

Fulton doesn’t think her mother and father ever registered to vote on county, state or federal matters. Fulton, who now is in charge of elections in Apache County, didn’t register herself until she was 30.

Although voting was part of the Navajo culture, the significance of it didn’t extend to any elections not on the reservation. Fulton can see, looking back, how this wasn’t by chance.

Native Americans were barred from voting by court order until 1948. And once they were allowed, literacy tests and an English ballot kept participation rates low.

It wasn’t until after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, legislation championed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. aimed at ending discriminatory practices in the South that kept African-Americans from voting, that Navajos also started registering in significant numbers. Following that act, Apache County saw its first Native American county official elected and now reliably has representation in the Arizona Legislature and in city and county offices.

Here’s the interesting thing about the LG’s statement. She acknowledged she had a conversation with Mayor Zimmer on the date in question. And the LG confirmed Mayor Zimmer’s allegation that if she repeated the conversation the LG would deny it. Those two facts right there are consistent with the Mayor’s allegations. So far, the facts are on the mayor’s side.

“The drum major instinct can lead to exclusivism in one’s thinking and can lead one to feel that because he has some training, he’s a little better than that person who doesn’t have it. Or because he has some economic security, that he’s a little better than that person who doesn’t have it. And that’s the uncontrolled, perverted use of the drum major instinct.”

He’d have better luck waiting and going after Kaine in a few years. Warner is revered in Va more so by Repubs than Dems to be honest. I’ll never forget volunteering for the Obama Campaign in VA in 2008 and how I would hit conservative pockets and even though they were hesitant about voting for PBO they were adamant in their support for Warner. I’m sure the Republicans will put the full force of the party into this race and it will make for an interesting campaign that cable tv will eat up.

GM 57, She contacted me on Saturday morning. She had a health issue and was hospitalized. Her mom confiscated her cell phone to ensure that she got the rest she needed while being cared for. She was grateful for our concern and says she’ll be back in contact soon.

I’m moving a little sloooOOOooowww this morning…way too much partying last night. I feel awful that I missed going to the MLK Day of Service today. Ours was the sandwich assembly at the Union Mission for the homeless. With my luck PBO and family will probably be there and I’ll miss out. Oh well… this ole girl apparently can’t hang like she used to. 😉

So the Morning Joke and his sidekick BFF of Christie Mika B. was in full on damage control for their buddy today and never once mentioned in 3 hours that today we observed MLK’s birthday. Someone please tell me this is a rumor and not really true!

David Gregory Turns Meet The Press Into a Democrat Bashing Defense of Chris Christie

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It would be nice if David Gregory and his Beltway buddies were half as tough on Republican serial liar Darrell Issa, as they are when a Democrat is leading an inquiry about the conduct of a potential Republican presidential candidate. This was the kind of disgraceful, lazy, partisan performance that viewers have to come to expect from David Gregory.

Gregory is the primary reason why Meet The Press has slumped so badly in the ratings, and it is easy to see why NBC is considering dumping him from the television institution. All of the Sunday shows have a demonstrated bias towards Republicans, but David Gregory takes it to a new low.

David Gregory’s Republican talking point hour is giving millions of Americans a great reason to sleep in and skip Meet The Press on Sunday mornings.

Howdy all you O’s!!! What a great getting up MLK observance day in the TOD universe!!!

It is so important that we continue to talk about and teach our children about MLK’s work and purpose. There are forces who would like nothing more than to either diminish his accomplishments, or erase them all together.

My #1 in No. Dakota had to go to the high school board last year, because they didn’t have anything mentioned for Black History Month. They claimed an oversight. To make amends, they asked my granddaughter (only one of about 3 AAs in the whole school) to put together anything she’d like about Black History Month and share it with all students and staff in assembly. She gave a talk on Black inventors and challenged everyone to refrain from using anything invented by a Black person for 2 weeks. Though, I was so proud of her, I still felt the school system should have done the lifting and educated their students.

#1 had to call the No Dakota state school board in Bismark because this year, the MLK day off from school is being called ‘Teacher In-Service Day’. There’s no mention to the students that this is a nationally recognized day of remembrance for the only other individual, besides George Washington, to have a national day in his honor.

It’s on us to keep his legacy alive and to bring it front and center when others try to diminish him.

OT, but did anyone else find it odd that the Lieutenant Governor of NJ detailed what wasn’t said between her and Hoboken, Mayor Zimmer, but never once said what was said?

When people are healthy, they are energized,” she tells KYW Newsradio. “They can work. They can provide for their families. You can’t separate health and well-being from economic and jobs and businesses.”

Jackson, Mississippi (CNN) — Investigative documents obtained by CNN show that former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, his wife and his staff may have given preferential treatment to two of the convicted murderers who were among the more than 200 former and current inmates he pardoned in January.

According to the documents compiled by the office of Mississippi’s attorney general, the state’s former first lady, Marsha Barbour, apparently called a car dealership regarding the purchase of two vehicles for two convicted murderers — days before they were pardoned. The cars were later delivered to the governor’s mansion, two days before the men were released.

CNN has also learned that a member of the governor’s staff took the same two men, David Gatlin and Charles Hooker, to get their driver’s licenses while they were still in state custody, before their pardons were signed and made official.

“Yes, that’s true … I did take some of them,” said Barbour’s former security chief, Wayland Adams. “I knew that they were going to be paroled. I was assured of that and I just took them to get their driver’s licenses.

Good Beautiful Morning/Afternoon/Evening my beautiful Chips and TOD family. (((( To our Danny))). Lots of loving hugs to our wonderful President and First Lady. We are blessed to be living during this time.

Dr. King’s example of goodness in this world rings out with our joyful hearts with messages of grace to be still moving to the beat of the Drum Major’s rhythm of freedom, equal opportunities for all and the power of the people to march in complete rhythmic grace of freedom for all. In our service today, let our hand, feet, and hearts represent Dr. King’s Dream for all people.

I just did my meditational moments and then put on my music and dance until I broke a sweat. Feel great. Dance, Dance, Dance to your own music and be grateful in your space. ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Loving Healing Hugs to our Dudette))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))HZ

Meanwhile, the coverage of the coverage continues. The New York Times has a story about how MSNBC’s reporting on the governor has changed since the story broke. MSNBC’s “on-air romance” with the governor was “forged over chummy strolls along the Jersey Shore and heart-to-hearts in the studio about everything from overeating to education,” the Times writes. Over the years, Christie also developed close ties to MSNBC anchors including Mika Brzezinski. He even showed up at her recent book signing. And this:

Immediately after Mr. Christie concluded his apologetic news conference about the controversy last week, he spent 15 minutes on the phone with Ms. Brzezinski as he prepared to face Fort Lee, the small community crippled by gridlock from the lane closures, she said. On Sunday, Ms. Brzezinski still spoke fondly of Mr. Christie and his wife, Mary Pat, “whom I have the biggest admiration for,” she said.

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That says it all. When The Christie group is attacking MSNBC…….for having a Slant……Note where the same Christie Goes to muddle the Story…….Mourning Joke.

It’s disgusting when organizations, politicians, or Snowden fans co-opt African-American leaders, activists, icons for their bullshit. They’re never there with us when we need help and are fighting for equality or a space at the table. Noooooo, they’re there to co-opt our people who fought for revolutionary ideals and are revered around the world. I see that PETA is being called out on Twitter and thank goodness.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is not comparable to an animal. Slavery is NOTHING like what animals experience. NOTHING is like slavery. Don’t degrade African-Americans and people who died due to slavery for some bloody insane crap. They’ve lost their ever-loving minds.

The fate of animals today is similar to that of humans who were subjected to slavery and other civil rights injustices—they, too, are tortured, abused, and neglected as humans once were and sometimes still are. More than 63 billion animals are slaughtered every year in the United States for the food industry, without even a thought to their feelings or needs.

Good afternoon everyone. Sorry I’m late but I woke to all the hypocrisy on and in the media and became ill. Remembering the venom that was out there and now some of those people are talking about how great MLK was……It makes me sick. I lived through all that and all that really sticks with me are phrases like, “What do ya’ll want?”, ” You’re moving too fast”, “Why can’t you stay on your side of town?.
Now Dr. King is romanticized to the point that you’d think he was a rethug idea all together. To hear them tell it, they were all on the bridge to Selma. And how great the “I have a Dream” speech was……..They don’t seem to remember about the “check” that has been returned marked insufficient funds.
Enough of my rant. We’ll get to that post racial nirvana as soon as they get that black man out of the White House………I’m still pissed!